At last we have had some intelligent comment and it had to come from a UKIP candidate.

Michael McGough has at last explained what would happen should we decide to leave the EU (Guardian, May 1).

The belief that we will be out of Europe the day after the referendum is farcical.
As he says, it will take at least two years of negotiations.

I watched the televised debates between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage and three times Clegg said that leaving the EU would cost three million jobs.

We have never had that number of unemployed in my lifetime – I am 83.

The nearest we got was in the 1980s, so such statements are pure scare mongering.

It is a known fact we buy more from Europe than we sell to them, so are all our European customers going to send us to Coventry?

Denying us the right to trade with Europe would be detrimental to their economies.

David Cameron is alone in promising an in or out referendum in 2017 and we should all be aware that when that arises he will be arguing we should remain in because he has negotiated better conditions, which are extremely unlikely.

The fact is all major parties are fearful of going it alone and those in power are too young to remember when we did.

Michael McGough explains in plain language what will happen if – and it is a gigantic if – we decide to leave the EU.

We shall once again be a nation trading with the world and that includes Europe.
Nobody can predict the outcome of an election accurately, so how can they predict the outcome of a referendum.

In the 1970s referendum on whether we should join a common market, I was one of millions that voted yes.

Joining a market that had 500 million customers was an excellent idea.

Had I known then what I know now I would have voted no.

I had no idea I was voting for a United States of Europe governed by unelected bureaucrats.

I am not a UKIP supporter but it is time the three major parties started telling the electorate the truth.

Only an open and honest debate on Europe will suffice.

Ernest Mundy,
High Road,
Buckhurst Hill.